Why I Don’t Use Photoshop Elements’ Action Player

There has been lots of discussion in various forums lately about using PSE’s Action Player for installing and running actions.  Here’s why I don’t use it (much):

• Every action that works in PSE will work by installing actions the long way that I detail on these installation pages.
• Not every action that works in PSE will work by installing it in the action player.

And it’s a shame too.  It’s much easier to install actions into the action player.  You don’t have to mess with resetting the MediaDatabase.db3 file and thumbnails aren’t used either.  Also, you can actually use Action Groups like the big Photoshop does.  This means that you only have one downloaded file which contains many actions.  Pioneer Woman’s Set 1 and Set 2 are action groups, for example.

Why don’t actions work in PSE’s Action Player?

Well, you probably know already that Photoshop Elements has 3 “modes” of editing.

1. Full Edit – full access to all PSE’s features
2. Quick Edit – just contains a few sliders and is for those of us who want to get in and out of PSE quickly and with no brain power expended
3. Guided Edit – where the Action Player lives.

The Guided Edit has shortcuts to functions that are commonly used in photo editing – crop, lighten or darken, correct skin tone, etc.  It also has “Guided Activities” where you can, for instance, “Touch Up Scratches or Blemishes” with PSE’s guidance.  A quick look at the menus in the Guided Edit View will show you that many of the menu items available in the Full Edit are grayed out and not accessible.  And the interface is slightly different as well – the toolbox isn’t available, and for that reason the tool options at the top of the work area aren’t available either.

So, if there is anything that PSE can’t do in the Guided Edit mode, then the action won’t work in the action player.  And the results can be bad if you try.  For instance, some actions run through a Free Transform, Crop or Place step.  You know how you can’t do anything until you press the green check box once you’ve started one of these activities?  And you just get that annoying beep from PSE until you figure out what you’re doing?

Well, that green checkbox doesn’t appear anywhere in the Guided Edit.  And I mean you can’t do ANYTHING without pressing that green check box.  You can’t even press Enter to activate it.  So running one of those actions will trap you right in the middle of PSE.  The only way I’ve been able to extricate myself from that situation is to press Control+Alt+Delete and force the program to end.

Two more points about using the action player:

• It’s only available in PSE 7 and 8
• If you want to make any adjustments to the action you’ve just running (turn layers on or off, adjust layer opacity, use masks, etc.) you have to go over to the Full Edit mode anyway

However, having said all that, when it works, it works like a dream! It would save many people lots of time and confusion if we could use the action player more.  So, every action I run from now on in Photoshop Elements is going to be tested there and I’ll report back to you.  And maybe start a list of which actions can be used that way and which can’t?

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